Interesting column in Pakistan's "The Nation" on imperialism and terrorism

[Recursion]

http://nation.com.pk/blogs/19-Nov-2015/if-islamist-terror-is-due-to-western-imperialism-why-isn-t-south-america-and-sub-saharan-africa

Again I hear talk everywhere that Islamist terrorism is a reaction to Western imperialism. It’s supposedly got nothing to do with radical Islamists. I have to wonder if why Korea and Vietnam didn't start pumping terrorists into the world as an aftermath of the horrendous wars there, why oil producers in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa didn't start pumping terrorists into the world in reaction to western meddling there.

The world didn't know of jihad till after WWII when it became evident that future security of states would henceforth depend on the security of their oil supplies, whether to power their economies or to fuel their militaries. There is oil all over the world and there has been competition and conflict to secure that oil, but only the oil of the Middle East drives global terrorism. The cause is Saudi Arabia, which has used its oil revenues to drive fundamentalist radicalization of Muslim societies all over the world, infesting them with mosques and seminaries that disseminate Saudi scripted fundamentalist, hateful perspectives. Every major Muslim terrorist organization in the world is connected to a web in the center of which sits Saudi Arabia. This social re-engineering and radicalization of Muslim societies by the gold-laden, oil-drunk Wahabbis is so successful that even the liberals of the West run to blame their own governments entirely for the rise and spread of Islamist terrorism.

So many Muslims died in the Iran/Iraq war, but the slaughter of Muslims by Muslims is never mentioned by the Chomskyites. They go straight to, and only to, the American involvement. Janjaweed Arab militias conducted genocide against blacks in Sudan, killing about 300,000 people, to say nothing of rape, but nothing is said about that either. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan committed genocide in Bengal and killed, at most conservative estimates, 300,000 people in just a few months, and now carries on a slaughter of Muslims in Balochistan, but that’s not heard about either. Most of those who died in the second Iraq war were killed not by American GIs, but by Muslim militias intent on preventing the establishment of a state that left them out of the loop, and by the mutual slaughter of each other by Shias and Sunnis. But we put all the blame on America's shoulders.

In every case where the West can be blamed, it is blamed totally, including for the behaviors and actions and brutality of barbarians who were savage to begin with. In any situation where the West can’t be blamed, the whole thing is swept under the carpet and forgotten (as Darfur and East Pakistan have been) and the drumbeat of blaming the West for barbarism practiced by Muslim fanatics carries right on.

[villager]

1. The U.S. will never have the guts to cut off funding to the Saudis. Thus, it's all a sham to strip

...us of our rights, since there's no actual willingness to cut off the real head, in terms of capital and support....

[climber3986]

2. sounds like my wife

she grew up in sialkot until she came to the US when she was around 14

This social re-engineering and radicalization of Muslim societies by the gold-laden, oil-drunk Wahabbis is so successful that even the liberals of the West run to blame their own governments entirely for the rise and spread of Islamist terrorism.

This is also part of the problem, we have our own bigots in our country so as to try to not feed the fire sometimes we completely take the blame away when sometimes we just need to call a spade a spade.

Pakistan has a serious religious fundamentalist / lack of education problem that needs to be addresses. My wife often tells me about a running gag in the country is that whenever something bad happens to Pakistan its because it was a secret CIA/Mossad operation.

Fortunately like our country the newer generation that grew up with cell phones and the internet are more liberal / tolerant than past generations.

[Recursion]

3. And it works in multiple directions: India has had more Maoist terrorist attacks than Islamist ones

but still if you ask an Indian about terrorism he or she only thinks "Pakistan".

[CJCRANE]

4. It's not "blowback" if we and our allies fund it and facilitate it.

Just look at 9/11 as the prime example.

It's an entire narrative based on a false premise.

However, I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that we are feeding the monster with one hand and fighting it with the other.

Nowhere is the loop more apparent than with the rise of Isis in Syria and Europe.

The west and our allies funded and gave weapons to jihadis who then came back and attacked us, the west (helped by absurdly open borders and Merkel's idea of expediting unvetted migrants into the heart of Europe).